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DeltaWing eligible to compete in ALMS for class championship in 2013

The American Le Mans Series will have a competition class for the DeltaWing next season. Photo by LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

Next weekend’s Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta will be the first race in North America for the Nissan DeltaWing. It won’t be the last.

The American Le Mans Series sanctioning body IMSA confirmed that on Friday with an announcement that the revolutionary prototype would compete as a fully classified car in the 2013 ALMS season. As it did at this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, Nissan DeltaWing will run unclassified at Road Atlanta as a factory-backed entry. The unique car features half the weight, half the horsepower and half the aerodynamic drag but all of the performance of a typical Le Mans prototype.

“Nissan DeltaWing attracted enormous fan and media interest throughout the world as a result of it racing at Le Mans--and fan interest in seeing the DeltaWing race at Petit Le Mans is extremely strong,” said Scott Atherton, American Le Mans Series President and CEO. “There is no question DeltaWing is selling tickets as a result of it making its North American competition debut at Road Atlanta.”

IMSA plans to collect race data at Petit Le Mans to create the rules for DeltaWing to compete as a championship-contending car in the ALMS for customers.

The 1,000-mile, 10-hour Petit Le Mans will provide a stark contrast for designer Ben Bowlby and the DeltaWing team that including drivers Gunnar Jeannette and Lucas Ordonez. The 2.54-mile Road Atlanta is dramatically shorter, tighter and features more elevation changes than the 8.5-mile Le Mans circuit.

“Seeing the car compete at Petit Le Mans will provide us with an important comparison to the current prototype competition,” said Scot Elkins, ALMS and IMSA COO. “The car has some significant advantages [lower weight] and major disadvantages [lower horsepower]. The data gathered from Petit Le Mans will be very important for us to finalize the rules package and apply any performance balancing which may be required.”

What’s certain is that those battles will continue beyond 2012. Don Panoz, American Le Mans Series founder and DeltaWing Racing Cars managing partner, said that he envisions more than one DeltaWing in future ALMS fields, possibly as early as next season.

“We’ve certainly had a lot of inquires from teams interested in the car, but the big unknown for people has been whether or not the car could compete for a championship (in 2013),” Panoz said.

“We are still learning a great deal about the car, and the recent tests at Road Atlanta have proven to be very beneficial for the program. Those lessons will be used for the updated 2013 car with a number of changes that will improve reliability and further enhance safety. The fans want to see it, the teams are very interested--I think the car is going to provide sports car racing with major boost for the future.”

Petit Le Mans is scheduled to begin at 11:30 a.m. on Oct. 20 from Road Atlanta.